LANSING — The battle over the minimum wage is heating up in Michigan and nationally, as activists consider a potential ballot proposal and President Barack Obama is expected to discuss income inequality during his State of the Union this evening.

A coalition of labor and civil rights groups on Monday announced it had formed a committee that could push for a ballot proposal to raise Michigan's minimum wage. The coalition hasn't announced specific numbers yet, but wants to raise both Michigan's $7.40-per-hour minimum wage as well as the $2.65-per-hour rate for tipped employees.

Michigan is among 21 states with a minimum wage above the federal level of $7.25.

What should happen to the minimum wage?Meanwhile, Democratic state lawmakers called on Congress to increase the federal minimum wage and restore emergency unemployment benefits that ended last month.

"The top priority for lawmakers in Lansing and Washington should be to help people get back to work and make sure those who are working can earn decent wages," Sen. Jim Ananich, D-Flint, said in a statement.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer has joined the movement with his proposal for a Michigan minimum wage of $9.25 per hour. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder in November told reporters that Schauer's proposal is "a significant hike and that could be a challenge."

"That's one of those issues, it hadn't been a hot topic at all in Lansing in terms of issues because we're already above the federal minimum," Snyder said in November.

Opponents, many of them Republicans, peg the minimum wage movement as an effort to increase voter turnout among Democrats. They also argue that higher wages translate into fewer jobs and increased consumer costs.

"Economically, it's a very harmful policy that hurts more people than it helps and particularly the poorest among the lowest income, because owners can't just eat the cost of this increase in the mandated minimum, so they're going to choose the most productive among their existing employees to keep," said Michael LaFaive, fiscal policy director at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Midland-based free-market think tank.

Lower-skilled workers would see fewer job opportunities because employers will be forced to hire higher-skilled applicants to fill multiple roles or cut jobs to absorb higher wage costs, said Wendy Block, director of health policy and human resources for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.

"Employers and employees across the country are currently struggling to afford the costs associated with government-mandated health insurance, otherwise known as Obamacare," Block said in a statement. "Michigan job providers and workers simply cannot absorb another government-mandated cost increase."

But Michigan State AFL-CIO President Karla Swift said raising wages would increase purchasing power for those workers.

"Contrary to the outdated image of high school kids flipping burgers, less than a quarter of minimum wage workers are teenagers and many are the breadwinners for their families," she said in a statement.

Warren resident Sam Johnson, 57, said he makes $8.25 per hour working for a fast food restaurant. That's more than the minimum wage, but it's still "virtually impossible" for him and his working wife to pay all the bills and support a 17-year-old boy they care for.

He said he volunteers each month at a food bank and sees many people who work, but don't earn enough for food.

"It's a shame that people can work so hard and want the American dream and can't even have the basics of life," he said.